The Man He Needs Is Stackhouse

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, May 13, 1995

Welcome to the Bay Area, where the earth moves and tickets to baseball games don't. I think you're going to like it here. People really know their basketball. That's the good news and the bad news.

Your job is simple: Restore the team, make everyone forget Don Nelson and Chris Webber. Oh yeah, don't forget to hire a terrific coach, have a sensational draft and sign a couple of popular, talented free agents. And get in the playoffs pronto.

First you'll want to get settled in, check out what you've got and get the lay of the land. Here are a couple of tips:

-- When looking at the ads for new homes, it might be a good idea to sit down before reading the prices. Yeah, yeah, we know, at these prices you could buy a whole tobacco farm back in Charlotte.

-- Want to make your life easier? Buy the team's owner a CD player for his car. That way he won't get to listening to talk- radio shows and decide to call in and reveal every trade you're thinking of making. Of course, when he called KNBR's Pete Franklin the other day, Pete wasn't even sure it was Chris Cohan, so maybe it doesn't matter.

-- Here's a local quirk. If you see some of your players wearing shoes with numbers on the back, they are not going bowling. Believe it or not, it is a complicated political statement, and it is a big issue out here. You'd better decide how you feel on this issue; you're going t be asked about it.

OK, settled in? Great, let's get started. There are two ways you can launch the Twardzik era. You can sit tight, take a long slow look at the players, let them play together for a while, offer gentle words of encouragement and allow the team to come together like a rum custard.

Or you can do it the right way. Pull the cord, Dave, yank the lever, drop the trapdoor and toss the dead weight overboard. These fans want to see some action.

I'll even get you started. Victor Alexander? Gone. He's got "expansion draft" stamped all over him, which is fine because expanding is the best thing Victor did.

Now, let's take a look at the regular draft. What do we see? Here, let me give you a name: Jerry Stackhouse.

Sure, he played forward at North Carolina, but he will be a swing man in the big show. Great guy and a big, strong son of a boot. He's a model citizen and a leader. He competes like a man possessed. The fans would love him. He might even remind them a little of Bernard King.

Dave, did you ever heard of Run TMC? We didn't know it at the time, but it turns out that was the highlight of the Nellie era, when Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin were going up and down the floor like thoroughbreds. Plug a guy like Stackhouse in there, and we're off to the races again.

Right, you're way ahead of me. Stackhouse isn't going to hang around on the draft board for long. If he makes it to the fourth pick, it will be a minor upset.

Now, there is a chance the Warriors will win the lottery and get the first choice in the draft. There is also a chance Al Attles will announce a comeback and dominate the NBA. Let's just say the odds aren't very good on either one.

Dave, I'm not one of those Spree-haters. Maybe he will turn it around and be a sensational player. Maybe he can put his life in order, start making every shoot-around and practice and learn to love team outings with the public.

He just can't do it here. It's too late. The page is ripped, the balloon has popped. It is not just that he and Hardaway hate each other, it's that they can't put it behind themselves for a second. After Sprewell tore into Hardaway in the papers this year, he was booked on Greg Papa's postgame show and given the chance to smooth things over, on the assumption that maybe some of his comments had been taken out of context.

"One of the things you are quoted as saying," Papa began, "is that Tim was a 'Nellie brown-noser.' "

"I said that," Sprewell offered promptly.

Well, as long as you weren't misquoted, Spree . . .

You know, Dave, one of the things you talked about yesterday was the need for this team to put the entire Webber-Nelson fiasco behind it, to start with a clean slate.

"Having that resolved," you said, "is pretty important."

Call me a cynic, but I don't think it ever will be resolved for Sprewell here. Maybe we all missed the significance until it was too late, but he was deeply, emotionally offended by the trade of Webber. The affair will never be over as long as he is here. He needs a change, and so do the Warriors.

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Swap him and one of those first- round draft picks the Warriors got from Washington for Webber for the draft pick that will get you Stackhouse, and you'll never be sorry.

Well, that's all for now. But if you have any more questions, don't worry. That's one thing about your new job, you're going to get lots of help.

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